The aim of this paper is not to disprove previous interpretations of Wilder's work, but to enlarge on them. The problem is not that the opinions of the early critics and many of the later ones were incorrect; the were merely incomplete. This paper shall attempt to show that Wilder's major thematic material falls into two interlocking and overlapping groups. Repeatedly Wilder deals with the relationship of man to something beyond himself, and the relationship of man to individual man and to mankind.